As the U.S. prepares for an extravagant celebration of its founding principles, fewer Americans see their country as exceptional, a new poll finds.
The survey from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research highlights many Americans’ feeling of unease over the future of its representative government — particularly among young people. It presents a jarring contrast as communities around the country commemorate the nation’s 250th anniversary.
Only about one-quarter of Americans say the U.S. stands above all other countries in the world, the new poll found, while 44% say it’s one of the greatest countries in the world, along with some others. About 3 in 10 say there are better countries than the U.S., an increase from 19% in an AP-NORC poll conducted in June 2016.
7 in 10 are still blinded by the propaganda then.
I mean… At least a couple of those seven could be thinking they’re all fucked. That’s how I feel, even the countries I used to think about fleeing to are all being bullshit right now. Whether it’s the EU’s continued infatuation with chat control, or Brexit, or whatever else is going on. Several countries right now seem like they’re only about five or 10 years behind the United States in so far as enshitifying goes.
Some of us might see it as exceptionally shitty or at least exceptionally captured by corporate interests.
Americans are routinely terrorized by the very thought of moving to a foreign country. Every other place on Earth is wracked with crime, plagued with poverty, ruined by pollution, and obliterated by war. Fortress America is the only Safe Space for white people. And even within Fortress America, you need to be holed up in some exurban Walled Garden that’s surrounded by battalions of the most heavily armed police imaginable.
My father-in-law traveled to Zhuhai, China (just outside Macau) a few years ago. He was flabbergasted at how clean and safe and easy to get around a foreign country could be. He’d been prepared to hike ten miles a day between shitty bus stops. He’d left everything personally valuable to him behind, because he was convinced it would all get confiscated or stolen. He dressed almost entirely in flannel, because he was afraid looking to affluent would get him mugged. He even packed a bunch of dried food, for fear he wouldn’t find anything to eat for days at a time. Ended up in a city that could have doubled as San Francisco. The worst experience he had was people insisting they let him take a picture together (he’s a tall round guy with a white beard and people kept calling him “Santa”).
I’ve had this experience so frequently with folks who have traveled. We go to Mexico City. We go to Seoul, South Korea. We go to Turkiye and Greece. We go to Moracco. We go to Buenos Aires. Even London and Paris. Everyone thinks we’re going to die. We send them pictures. We tell stories. Nobody in the states believes it, until they get dragged out of their hidey holes to see it for themselves.
The American Brain is absolutely cooked.